Orphan Wisdom
Stephen Jenkinson’s
Teaching House

Learn More

Stephen Jenkinson

Stephen is a worker, author, storyteller, culture activist, and founder of Orphan Wisdom, a teaching house for skills of deep living and making human culture that are mandatory in endangered, endangering times. He makes books, tends farm and mends broken handles and fences, succumbs to interviews, teaches and performs internationally.

Orphan Wisdom

Orphan Wisdom is the home of Stephen Jenkinson’s writing and teaching work. It is a redemptive project that comes from where we come from. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time we won’t see.​
Learn More

DARK ROADS/ROUGH GODS
Available Now

Learn More

Postponed to late 2021
Nights of Grief & Mystery
Rough Gods
World Tour

Learn More

Attend An Upcoming Event
With Stephen Jenkinson

See All

Latest News

READ MORE

Shop

Homecoming
$49.95
SEE ALL

Lost Nation Road

Lost Nation Road is a glimpse behind-the-scenes of a soulful mystery train, an ode to wonder, and a love letter for the willingness to know endings featuring Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins. Learn more and watch the full short-film.

LEARN MORE

Come of Age by Stephen Jenkinson
Official Book Trailer

In his landmark provocative style, Stephen Jenkinson makes the case that we must birth a new generation of elders, one poised and willing to be true stewards of the planet and its species. Read more…

LEARN MORE

The Making of Humans

The relentless pursuit of self reliance and self improvement is rooted in our lost connection to common stories, homeland and ancestors that bind and unite us. The times now demand that we recognize the world’s suffering in our own. Read more…

LEARN MORE

The Meaning of Death

Many among us now are crazy for meanings, and crazed by seeking them out. The meanings of life aren’t inherited. What is inherited is the mandate to make meanings of life by how we live. The endings of life give life’s meanings a chance to show. The beginning of the end of our order, our way, is now in view. This isn’t punishment, any more than dying is a punishment for being born. Read more…

LEARN MORE

The Haiku Sessions

This three day teaching is part wonder, part battle cry and part strategy for the beginnings of a deeply wrought human life which makes peace with the ravaged world, finds a home along the old abandoned road, and honours the grief soaked longing for those things and those people we thought we lost. This is what generations to come deserve from us, this labour, and it might yet fashion from us a generation of ancestors worth coming from. Read more…

LEARN MORE

Griefwalker

Griefwalker is a National Film Board of Canada feature documentary film, directed by Tim Wilson. It is a lyrical, poetic portrait of Stephen Jenkinson’s work with dying people. Griefwalker shows Jenkinson in teaching sessions with doctors and nurses, in counselling sessions with dying people and their families, and in meditative and often frank exchanges with the film’s director. Read more…

LEARN MORE